She nibbled at another corner of the homemade chocolate truffles she’d made as she tuned into the podcast with embarrassing swiftness, excited for tonight’s foray into this man’s wicked voice. If not for pervy Eri’s suggestion, she wouldn’t have even considered listening to the smut peddler she was currently tuned into, but an odd conversation sitting at the WacDonalds table over fries had her interested piqued. With Eri, she spoke with her hands, waving them wildly as she attempted to sway all the girls to her side.
“I guarantee, you’ll be gushing after the first ten seconds of listening to this guy just TALK.” She’d insisted. “He could be giving you the recipe for haggis, and you’d still have wet panties.”
Her enthusiasm, while grossly over-indulgent, was right on the money to Kagome’s dismay. This was the third week she had tuned into and now it wasn’t even a matter of maybe she’d catch it on her downtime - no, this was now an entire ritual. Mismatched candles had been settled around her bathroom and tub, all lit in different scents as it gave off a flickering low-light gleam. The truffles sat on a bathtub tray alongside a stemless glass of merlot she’d originally purchased last week, the other half of the bottle sitting beside the tub within easy reach for refills. Her toilet was covered with a bath sheet, and the bluetooth speaker she’d purchased last week had been beautifully tuned to get the bass just right so his voice bounced off the bathroom tile like a coin off the tight ass of a taiyoukai she once knew so many years ago. Now that she had everything set up perfectly, she hoped to have the same cum-worthy experience she’d had last week at his nimble goadings.
Somehow, while he was articulating all the thrusting those superbly described main characters were doing, her fingers had found their way to her intimates, and the gentle playing alone paired with the silky deepness of his voice had her near tears until he was finished speaking.
Never in her life had she managed to achieve that kind of an orgasm on her own, and by the time she came back down, floating into the lukewarm rose scented epsom salts, he was bidding his biddies fair well with a promise of more on the horizon should they tune in next week for more adventures into future’s past with him. And here she was, chocolate laid out, hot water pouring, and the other half of the bottle of merlot she’d purchased last week ready for round two.
Warm water tickled at the edges of her thighs when she noticed the live streaming event had begun and she immediately popped in, connecting her speaker and setting her phone aside. Her hair was wrapped in a pink towel, foot resting on the handle of the tub ready to turn the hot water off for when it reached just the right level, and the booming bass of the man’s voice slid into her bathroom like a welcome visitor.
“This evening’s journey takes us back into time, our brown eyed beauty with doe-ish grace teasing our hero as he puts an end to the most miserable of foes. Will our man give in to the temptation of the raven haired vixen, seductive as she is? Or will he hold out, hold on to his sanity, and not give in to her feminine whiles again?” He paused, and she could hear the delicate intake of breath before his mouth whispered closer to the microphone. “Wouldn’t you like to find out, darlings?”
Kagome shuddered, feeling the heat of warm breath caress her ear as her lashes fluttered closed, and a small, playful smile enveloped her features. Her dexterous foot managed to turn the water off, and now it was just his voice shrouding the room in that mysterious whisper.
“We find our man standing at the edge of a cliff, eyes closed as he takes in the spray of the sea. Long lashes peppered with salt water lay across his cheeks as the wind ruffles the length of his hair, tossing the long mane aside as he inhales deep.”
The reader paused, inhaling, exhaling, and Kagome followed suit.
“It is the crashing of the waves that has him looking over the vastness of the ocean, marveling at the color the sun under the water creates, when a gentle hand on his wrist startles him out of thought. ‘At some point, we must speak of what happened..’ She insists. Barely glancing down, he hides the swallow of his nerves that she might see only his strength as she had in days before. ‘We cannot undo what has been done. And we cannot promise you a love that does not exist.’ He is resolute, even as the look on her face is one of pain, deep hurt. There is a berating of himself; it is not hurt he meant to achieve, but mere honesty. This is not the way of women though, and she releases her gentle hold as she turns away from him.”
The reader paused, and Kagome’s browns knit, feeling the woman’s struggle.
"Cheers to that girl. Just walk away.” She muttered to herself as she sipped the wine in the glass and took another bite of chocolate.
“He wants to reach out, tell her what she’s done, how she’s bewitched him beside himself, but no words come from his stoic mouth... And his silence never gives her a reason to pause; she only does so out of the same need to bear in all honesty the truth of her feelings. ‘I’ll never understand the stubbornness of you fools.’ And with her statement she is walking with a haste down the way she’d come, the sea hiding the salt of her tears on the wind. He stares after her for hours. Though gone from sight, she is not gone from his mind.”
Kagome’s heart hitched hopefully, taking another sip of her wine.
“The lustrous veil of the black crowned head, the sweeping depth of fawn colored eyes, the sweet part of her mouth, petal soft lips praising the Gods for the offering received in their throes. There is no way for him to rid himself of her, for she is in his fondest memories. There she remains, distracting him as the grip on the hilt of a worn sword tightens and he makes for his enemy’s camp.”
Kagome bit her lower lip, closing her eyes at the description and running a fingertip over her mouth, pretending to be that beauty in his description. She could feel the longing in his voice, like he’d loved and lost himself the same beauty. It stood to reason, many authors pulled emotional depth from personal experiences, which made it that much easier to draw readers (or in this case listeners) in. Though she was fairly certain that plot was not the only reason most ladies tuned in. Who wouldn’t want to be caressed and loved by that auspicious voice?
“The journey feels both long and withered, yet all to brief as his knuckles whiten on his weapon. Entering the camp on his own is no small feat - it is a sign of the greatest audacity, an assurance of ascendancy. He knows his strength and it is unmatched, even if his foe is a fearsome devil with the might of thousands of hammers striking all at once. His arrival is heralded by the army as they murmur and whisper to one another, some in mockery as though being torn asunder by the woman who has strings attached to his heart is something worth the flattery of being insulting. No, he knows the woman beneath him only nights before holds power in her own name, and smirks in those derisive visages with his own private dogma.”
Kagome’s eyes slide shut as her hands reach over her thighs, the words bouncing around in her chest heavily, almost personally. Swallowing, as heat crept up in her thighs, she reached out and grabbed another sip of wine, indulging in the rest of a truffle as she played along her own thighs. Truthfully, she wanted to know how Eri came about finding this gem. Where in the hell had she been that she’d come across this kind of a voice? She rarely ever read books, let alone listened to them... Maybe she’d text her after this episode to see what she knew about the reader.
“Our hero is met with a boisterous laugh, and it is thunderously reverberated through his foe’s army. ‘What fool is this at my tent this night? One with a death wish?’ He manages to fend off the first strike of the would-be assassin’s blade, the ring of impassioned steel bringing the mirthfulness to an end. When the devil opens his mouth for blaspheming again, the assassin merely strikes with his secondary niigata and this time bites into the flesh of the devil’s armored forearm. It sinks into the protective armor like butter, tearing through skin and bone as tissue paper. Another flurry of strikes and the army grows nervous for it’s head, who huffs and puffs at the onslaught.”
Kagome had a tendency to put faces to the characters of the reader’s story she was familiar with. For the Assassin, despite her deep love for Inuyasha, she tended to put Sesshoumaru’s face in. It matched perfectly, as the Assassin was usually a man of few words. And while she wasn’t always putting herself in the heroine’s shoes, she couldn’t help the occasional fantasy of being swept away by a white haired demon despite herself.
“An overconfident Assassin misses one of the devil’s swipes; his cheek now awash with blood dripping down his uniform and both are bleeding. Stepping back for the briefest of seconds, he makes a decision - the sooner the battle ends, the better. He manages a swift blow to the devil’s neck, cutting through half of it and decapitating his foe enough it is a murderous rage that blows through the valley of his foe’s army. They turn on him as quickly, and the Assassin fights for his life. One man becomes four, and four become twelve. Bodies pile up around him until there is nobody left to fight for the honor of a fallen general, and the Assassin, while exhausted, is victorious against his enemy.”
That was most definitely a Sesshoumaru moment. She could see the taiyoukai not even bothering to break a sweat while he worked, let alone admit to any kind of exhaustion though.
“Retreating to the quiet of the wilderness that calls him a beloved son, he finds a peaceful place along a riverside fraught with cat-tails and reeds. The fish spring from its depths in glee and the hushed whisper of the unseen wind rushes through the trees where he settles to wrap his wounds and let them heal. Sleep takes him, but not before a familiar scent lingers on the susurrant winds. She is there. He can sense it.”
Kagome swallowed, sitting up attentively in the bath, sipping at her glass.
“And like a dream, he can feel the fluttering malleability of her fingers over his battled broadened shoulders. There is a shudder, a sigh as he fabricates the symphony of her touch on his campaign steeled body. He knows in her hands, he is a refugee and delighted at her mercies, finding solace in the rustle of her breath on his skin. It makes his heart pound as a drum of war, full of purpose and longing. He awakens in a long enough moment to imbibe in the warmth of her thighs over his own lap, the softest of touches on her lips with his own, before he wraps her in the safety of his arms.”
Kagome’s eyes slid closed as she saw it all in her minds eye, painting this fiction with painful realness. Would he smell like the ash after a fire? Maybe a winter storm? Perhaps the ozone before lighting striking... And would those fingertips be calloused, worn rough or smooth from battle? Her nails, bit into her hips as she imagined, the hand on her wineglass coming to rest under the water over the mound of her nether, playing with the carefully groomed thatch of trimmed hair there.
The breath in her lungs felt too hot, and breathing was fanning the flame warmer.
“She calls to her Assassin, fingers now deftly swiping the mark on his cheek, trying to ensure his health but is unable to rouse him from slumber. Too fatigued is he to answer his siren’s call, and before long he drowns in a deep blackness.” He pauses, as do Kagome’s hands on her body. “A short chapter, but we are afraid it is time to bid you farewell again until the next reading.”
Frustration poured over Kagome. While this was a possibility, she was hoping for a little more action. Maybe if she replayed last week’s she’d get the same heat... Sighing, Kagome slipped a little deeper into the water, blowing bubbles to herself.
“Would you like to meet the author? Come down to the book shop on Fourth and Main and grab a copy of his book!” An all-too excited voice announced, with a date that was easily two months in the future. Kagome pulled the plug on the tub, her fantasy shot to hell as she texted Eri about the chapter. Clearly, with the angry face Eri was texting her, Kagome could confidently say both of them were hoping for more heat. It was the eggplant emoji that made her laugh, and she shrugged, tapping out a response with a shrug and maybe next time?. Kagome blew out the candles around her bath and flipped the light on, the ends of her hair now soapy with bubble bath as reality came crashing back into her bathroom.
A shower cleaned the tub out and rinsed the soap away, and once she was finished brushing her teeth, she pulled her pajamas on before heading to bed. She couldn’t help how easy it was to insert Sesshoumaru into her fantasies. Like, yes, Inuyasha had been attractive enough, and sometimes there was a sentiment to his brashness that was.. nice. But it was that cold demeanor that cared nothing for her approval that made her insides quiver like a well chilled jello salad.
“Well, you sexy silver haired asshole, thanks for nothing tonight.” She mumbled, resentment coloring her tone.
~*~
Sesshoumaru fought not to sneeze until after the microphone had turned off. Something in the air, surely. Nina was practically prancing outside of the small sound-booth he was streaming from, her mouth working overtime trying to shout something to him in the sound-proofed box. Pulling the cans from his head, he shook his head impassively. There was no number of times he would reiterate to her that he couldn’t here her she would understand let alone remember that he’d told her he couldn’t hear a god-damned thing inside the booth when they were streaming live.
Opening the door to a cacophony of squealing noises his editor was making made his sensitive ears ache.
“Hush. You sound like a dog-whistle, Nina.” He groused, large palm covering her entire face as he strode by her towards the coat rack at the door of the tiny studio.
“Did you SEE your numbers for this stream? Dude. You’ve only been at this for the last few months! I swear to GOD that sex voice is going to pay for my college!” She laughed giddily, beating him to the coats and throwing the long black trench towards him as she snatched up her brown leather jacket.
“We only agreed to this for anonymity and so our work would be published. Even if the sound of our voice brings the threshold of this country’s women to its knees in want.” He teased, poking her in the nose. She swatted him away and frowned.
“For the record, while your voice, hair, face and general body are pretty, I’m a lesbian and immune to your charm. Keep your peen in the presence of the ladies that want it, weirdo.”
Sesshoumaru was rarely brought to smile in these days of newness and discovery, but somehow Nina always managed to make him grin like a whelp with no worries.
“Besides. You and I both know that there is only one reader you’re even trying to attract with that man-boy voice of yours, and I doubt she’s even alive to listen to it.”
This gave Sesshoumaru’s mirth pause, his entire demeanor flattening as Nina flippantly belted the coat.
“I dunno why you insist on writing about her instead of moving on to the next best thing.”
“Hn.”
She eyed him from below, mouth puckered.
“C’mon. Don’t be that way. I’m just saying - even you admitted yourself you have no idea what era she’s in, only that she’s futuristic. For all you know, you’re playing your strength to the wrong damn crowd. Just..” She shrugged. “I dunno, keep those options open, daddio. Its been too long. I know for a fact your kids would never have wanted to see you this unhappy. Especially mom.
Sesshoumaru’s patience thinned.
“Leave her out of this.” he warned softly. Nina blinked at him, somewhat cowed and a little flustered before she shut the lights off. Sesshoumaru was out the door before she could find it in herself to apologize. He knew his adoptive grand daughter well enough it would sound more a backhanded apology than anything. The street was dark and dampened from the rain of the changing season, soon to give way to snow with winter coming on. Streetlights lead the way back home to a modest house filled with old memories, built in the most traditional style he could still get given the modern era that had destroyed its original. Sliding the door open, he closed it softly behind himself and stood in the doorway for an awkwardly long and quiet moment, unsure of what to do with himself even after all these years. There was nobody at the house at this hour of the night, and there were only a handful of people he paid to come care for it while he ran off on his business ventures or delved into writing about things long forgotten that had finally come to light after the dust of his memories were brushed off.
Lately, his thoughts remained on one particularly pesky priestess, one who had cost him an arm, and a fair amount of pride at the end of her stay in Feudal Japan. Back then, there was a proposal stuck in the back of his throat he’d never quite mustered the right time to ask. He’d left himself with his proverbial dick in his hand, abandoning the idea he’d ever see her again. Inuyasha had tried to explain to him how the whole thing worked, but failed miserably after the ending of the jewel. The final wish had closed the well for good, and while he had insisted she was saying her goodbyes to her family in the era she was from, she had failed to return with no other explanation to what had happened other than an uninspired shrug from the hanyou.
It was the single most humiliating and humbling moment of his life.
Though, in his vast opinion, he was not only defined by such things as failure. The rest of his life was spent in great success, raising a young human girl to her fullest potential and helping her accomplish one of the largest organized anti-crime groups Japan had seen in its days. There was also wealth that was to be made with the passage of time, and while things changed, just as he deftly managed to keep up, he was still in control of many of his lands. Just in ways that didn’t involve immediately identifiable bloodshed.
Sure, he’d dispatched his fair share of mafia and yakuza, other pieces and bits of organized crime in swathes of blood; but that didn’t mean he was the same beast he’d been five hundred years ago. Now, it took a sizable amount to piss him off enough that it would goad him into action. There had to be a truly malevolent being in his realm that would inspire such heights of reparation in his western lands, and that was found few and far between with the reporting being done on vigilante justice in the woods somewhere.
There was no book entailing where they were, but Sesshoumaru knew where every body he’d ever buried was. That hole had shrunk in the years and nowadays his realm was experiencing peace it had never known before. Which is why he now had time to invest in ridiculous hobbies, like the current one. Nina, a long time friend to the Inus, had suggested putting his historical knowledge and baritone to good use. Sponsors were practically crawling out of the woodwork now in an attempt for him to do voice-over work, most of which he declined in favor of his reading. Nina had even gone so far as to start introducing him as the Velveteen Voice, like he was some sort of ridiculous super-hero in those old American Comics. Sesshoumaru had shaken his head and dismissed the whole thing entirely, insisting on his mysterious nature and attempting to drop the stupid names.
Slipping out of his shoes, he padded barefoot to the spacious living room and settled on reading what Nina would insist was a trashy novella. The honest truth was these things did nothing for him. Occasionally he would find something he could emulate and would inspire new ideas to write about, but lately, he’d had the oddest urge to go about writing something filth-ridden. Something about the way she acted, maybe the way she looked? He shook his silvery head as thought to get the ideas to align properly. If he were any kind of author, he would provide a perfectly worded portrait of his muse, and what she looked like first. As he recalled, she greatly enjoyed her hot springs and would bathe frequently...
*Back in Feudal Times*
He hadn’t meant to be a spy of any sort, let alone a lascivious one, but he couldn’t help it. He’d been drawn by the scent of dead things and powerful demon blood, only to find a very angry priestess stumbling through the forest towards the small spring he presumed she was originally after. There were some incredibly colorful cursings coming out of her mouth. The longer he listened, there was an occasional word that slipped from her mouth that sounded like fun to say, but was clearly being uttered as a curse. So instead of letting her run through the forest in her folly, he decided to follow and listen, perhaps learn something new.
She rambled through the forest like a heard of boar, not a single consideration for being the loudest creature in the forest. Her angered demeanor lessened upon the hot spring she’d finally made her way to, friends far enough away that the couldn’t hear her grumbling. Sesshoumaru watched placidly as the priestess dropped a heavy satchel and bent over to dig through it, snatching a few items with unnecessary irritation and tossing them to the side. Then, with no grace whatsoever, she stripped her odd haori and its separate green mate, feet sliding over the ankle boots she wore then the long tabi until her body was mostly undressed.
Sesshoumaru had seen a naked female before - he’d bedded plenty of beautiful demonesses in his time, and the anatomy was usually roughly the same with a few minor differences depending on the species. But human women only had minor differences. They didn’t all look the same by any means, but the differences were... subtle, not the same in the human realm as the demonic. Taking care not to knot inside of inu demonesses one was unmarried to while in demonic rutting forms, for example. Or attempting not to lay with the undead, which while it was already unusual, apparently there were more risks than he cared to admit he’d had to skirt. Kagura was beautiful enough, but the stench of death around her was enough of a deterrent he’d opted not to play in such fields.
The priestess was one of optimal human beauty, even if she was on the young side for experiences. According to what he’d heard though, she was a mere twenty years old at this point in her life, or at least that’s what he’d picked up. Her ungraceful body was still young and lithe, breasts tight and pert. Her hair, while completely bogged down by the same goo saturating her clothes, was a pleasantly long cascade of black on pale skin, and her doe brown eyes still held a fiery innocence that he found pleasurable to engage.
“Stupid fucking demon, getting a bunch of fucking garbarge all the fuck over in my fucking hair. FACK!” She raged, fingers clawing through her hair with wild abandon as they tried to pull as many fragments from her hair as possible. There was that word again. She used it in past and future tenses, as well as present. He wondered what exactly it meant and his curiosity nearly drove him to reveal his position from his perch, higher up in the trees.
“Stupid fucking Inuyasha. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuckity fuck.”
Now she was just being gratuitous, and it made him grin. Cursing the hanyou was certainly one of his favorite pastimes as well. She gave a frustrated huff, and he smelled the lightest of tears before she threw her arms akimbo and pulled the last coverings off, leaving her bare to the world. She all but dove into the hot water, staying under for a long moment before resurfacing with a pleased gasp.
“Nothing. Nothing beats a hot bath. Now to wash my hair...” She hummed as she pulled a bowl from her belongings and scooped water out of the hot spring, getting out lest soap get in the spring and ruin it. Sesshoumaru enjoyed the next few minutes of overjoyed humming and the smell of sandalwood coming from her soaps. Once she’d finished lathering herself and rinsing, she dropped back down into the water with a satisfied exhale.
“I’m never leaving this fucking spring. Never again.”
“Priestess.”
A shriek filled the clearing as he landed, greeting her.
“What the fuck Sesshoumaru?!” She shrilled at him.
“You keep using this word, fuck...” He hummed, schooling his expression to keep the smirk off his face. “What does this word mean?”
“What, fuck?” She said, arms trying to cover what she considered private. This almost did make him smirk. “How long have you been here?!”
He inspected his claws, picking a piece of dirt from beneath one with flourish. “Long enough you have no need to be embarrassed. You are a perfectly normal specimen of female, nothing we have not seen before.”
“Are you fucking serious right now...” One of her palms smacked loudly on her forehead.
“You have not answered our question, miko.”
“Fuck. Means..” She stumbled over the words, blinking like she’d never had to explain it. “Well depending on how its used I guess.. I mean... Well. Literally, to fuck means to have sex.”
She was stammering now, still flushed and attempting to hide herself behind nothing but hands and hot water.
“But a lot of times its used as kinda a frustration swear word, like damn it, I guess.” She flustered, still trying to explain.
“So the basis of the word means to fornicate..? Correct?” He inquired, now supremely curious as to its usages. She nodded.
“Then an appropriate usage for the word would be... Fuckable? As in we are entirely aware we are fuckable by our attractive nature?” Sesshoumaru let his eyes slide over hers now in a smolder she wasn’t ready for. The woman blinked at him, her blush seeming to crawl down to her chest now. Apparently he’d used the word properly, as she began to nod her head.
“Hm. Interesting. Carry on, priestess. We will let you have your silly privacy.”
He’d walked away, flicking an errant strand of hair over his shoulder and smirking darkly to himself with ideas the word he’d learned today had given him.
*Present Day*
Sesshoumaru laughed to himself at the memory and tossed his novella aside for a shower before sitting down to tap out the short before it was forgotten.